William K. Howard

Birth : 1899-06-16, St. Marys, Ohio, USA

Death : 1954-02-21

History

William K. Howard (June 16, 1899 in St. Marys, Ohio - February 21, 1954 in Los Angeles, California) was a film director, writer and producer. Howard began his work in Hollywood as an assistant director on the 1920 release The Adorable Savage. The following year, he received his first directing credits, for Get Your Man, Play Square and What Love Will Do. He wrote The One-Man Trail that same year. Some of his better known works as a director are The Thundering Herd, Surrender, Transatlantic, Sherlock Holmes, This Side of Heaven, Fire Over England, When the Lights Go on Again and A Guy Could Change. His film The Power and the Glory, directed by Howard from a screenplay by Preston Sturges, was neglected for decades but in recent years has received significant reappraisal due to recognition that this movie was a major influence on the structure of Citizen Kane. Howard has a "Star" on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Description above from the Wikipedia article William K. Howard, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies

A Guy Could Change
Director
A playboy is reformed by his daughter and fiancee.
When the Lights Go On Again
Director
The hometown life of a young soldier suffering from shellshock amnesia is revealed in flashback.
Johnny Come Lately
Director
Cagney is a human dynamo as a drifter who helps save ailing Grace George from losing her newspaper. The pace is fast, and audiences of all ages will be pleased. The supporting cast, have all the small-town characterizations down pat -- with Margaret Hamilton a standout. Cagney himself, had genuine affection for this film, and listed it among his top five movie-making experiences at a retrospective the year before he died.
Klondike Fury
Director
In this Alaskan adventure, a surgeon becomes a pilot after he messes up an operation. Unfortunately, he crashes during a storm and finds himself cared for by a lovely woman. He gets a chance to reclaim his self-esteem when her son suddenly needs the same operation the surgeon botched.
Bullets for O'Hara
Director
A detective courts a gangster's ex-wife to lure him into a trap.
Money and the Woman
Director
An embezzler's wife begs his boss for forgiveness, only to fall in love with him.
Back Door to Heaven
Story
The life of a young kid, who starts stealing small things to fit in with the "cool crowd".
Back Door to Heaven
Prosecutor (uncredited)
The life of a young kid, who starts stealing small things to fit in with the "cool crowd".
Back Door to Heaven
Director
The life of a young kid, who starts stealing small things to fit in with the "cool crowd".
The Green Cockatoo
Producer
A young girl is travelling to London to find work. Arriving at the station, she meets a man who has been stabbed by a member of a gang of crooks involved with greyhound racing. She becomes a suspect, but flees the scene in order to deliver a message to the dead man's brother. She is protected from the police by a night club entertainer, who she learns is the man she is seeking.
The Squeaker
Director
London's jewel thieves are under the thumb of a mysterious fence, who ruthlessly exposes any thief who crosses him. Desperate, Scotland Yard re-hires ex-Inspector Barrabal who, as a known drunkard, is ideally suited to go undercover with a faked criminal record (which may spoil his chances with lovely Carol Stedman).
Fire Over England
Director
The film is a historical drama set during the reign of Elizabeth I (Flora Robson), focusing on the English defeat of the Spanish Armada, whence the title. In 1588, relations between Spain and England are at the breaking point. With the support of Queen Elizabeth I, British sea raiders such as Sir Francis Drake regularly capture Spanish merchantmen bringing gold from the New World.
The Princess Comes Across
Director
A Swedish princess boards an ocean liner in Europe en route to an acting career in America, and finds herself getting inconveniently attached to a bandleader returning home. To complicate matters, a blackmailer on board apparently knows she is not who she claims to be - and he has his sights set on other passengers with secrets of their own. In the meantime an escaped killer has stowed away under someone else's identity, and is killing again to cover his tracks; five international police detectives on board are heading the investigation to find him. When evidence points to the princess and bandleader, they must find the killer themselves - before he finds them.
Mary Burns, Fugitive
Director
A young woman who owns a coffee shop falls for a handsome young customer, unaware that he is a gangster.
Rendezvous
Director
A decoding expert tangles with enemy spies.
Vanessa: Her Love Story
Director
The Victorian wife of a mad baron waits years for a British soldier sent to Egypt.
Evelyn Prentice
Director
A criminal lawyer's wife faces blackmail when she has an affair.
The Cat and the Fiddle
Director
A romance between a struggling composer and an American singer.
This Side of Heaven
Director
A family man becomes innocently involved in an embezzlement.
The Power and the Glory
Director
A man's life is retold just after his funeral. Beginning as a track walker, Tom Garner rose through all sorts of railroad jobs to head the company. In the meantime he lost touch with his family. When he saw what was happening it was already too late.
Sherlock Holmes
Director
Moriarty is sentenced to death, and Sherlock Holmes prepares to retire to the country and marry his girl. But Moriarty has sworn that Holmes, Lt. Col. Gore-King of Scotland Yard, and his trial judge shall all be hanged too. When Moriarty escapes and proceeds to put his threat into operation, Holmes has to postpone his retirement.
The First Year
Director
Grace Livingston is leading a happy life in her small town, with her mother and father, being courted by two men, the steady but predictable Tommy Tucker and the more ambitious, flashy, and worldly Dick Loring, who seems closer to Grace in his desire for travel and adventure.
The Trial of Vivienne Ware
Director
Vivienne Ware is defended by her ex-beau when she's accused of killing her faithless fiance.
Surrender
Director
Story of French prisoner in Germany who falls in love with a German general's daughter. From the novel "Axelle" by Pierre Benoit.
Transatlantic
Director
As a luxurious ocean liner makes its way across the Atlantic Ocean, the audience is made privy to the travails of several of its passengers. Edmund Lowe heads the cast as Monty Greer, a suave gambler who falls in love with Judy, the daughter of immigrant lens grinder Rudolph Kramer. In trying to recover some valuable securities stolen from banker Henry Graham, Greer finds himself in the middle of a fierce gun battle in the ship's engine room. Meanwhile, Graham, who has been cheating on his wife Kay with sexy dancer Sigrid Carline, is murdered by person or persons unknown.
Don't Bet on Women
Director
At a big party, Roger Fallon, now a woman-hater, right to the core - this all due to a failed marriage and disastrous love affairs - talks to Herbert Drake. Herbert who is happily married, bets Fallon that the next woman who walks into the room, whoever she is, won't let Fallon kiss her for 48 hours. Fallon takes the bet. Suddenly, a very beautiful and sexy woman walks in. It's Herbert's wife, Jeanne Drake...
Scotland Yard
Director
A soldier is wounded in action. His face is restored by a plastic surgeon to resemble someone else.
Good Intentions
Director
When love came the way of this gentleman crook he turned to the right---only to be caught in the swirling eddy of his criminal past! (original ad)
Christina
Director
This part-talkie (17 minutes of dialogue in its 83-minute running time) tells the tale of Christina, the daughter of Dutch toymaker Niklaas. Much to her dad's dismay, Christina falls in love with sideshow huckster Jan. Likewise disapproving of the romance is Jan's jealous employer Mme. Bosman, who frames the young man on an embezzlement charge.
Love, Live & Laugh
Director
Any movie that starts Jewish entertainer George Jessel as an Italian accordionist named Luigi can't be all bad. In love with the beautiful Margharita (Lila Lee), Luigi lands a job in the music store owned by the girl's uncle. Ultimately, however, our hero does the Pagliacci act when Margharita evinces a preference for handsome Pasquale (David Rollins). The film's best scene takes place in a nursery full of talented tots, a sequence that undoubtedly reminded Jessel of his days with Gus Edwards' "Schoolroom" act. Exercising his droit du seigneur, Georgie Jessel sings the title tune.
The Valiant
Producer
A man condemned to execution tries to convince two women that he is not their son and brother, and that they must get on with their lives.
The Valiant
Director
A man condemned to execution tries to convince two women that he is not their son and brother, and that they must get on with their lives.
The River Pirate
Director
This film concerns a youth torn between his fatherly gangland mentor and the beautiful, virtuous daughter of a police detective.
A Ship Comes In
Director
Film which tells the story of immigrants coming to the United States.
The Main Event
Director
Nightclub dancer Glory Frayne falls in love with championship boxer Red Lucas . Luca's latest opponent is likeable young pugilist Johnny Regan . When Johnny meets Glory, he is instantly smitten.....
White Gold
Director
A sheep farmer brings his new wife to his father's ranch and the old man takes an instant dislike to her.
Gigolo
Director
The heir to a family business travels to Paris to try to stop his youth-obsessed mother from squandering the family fortune with her new husband, who's married her for her money. After he returns from service in World War I, he finds his mother, now broke and abandoned by her gigolo husband....
Volcano
Director
Zabette de Chauvalons leaves a convent in Brussels to join her father on the island of Martinique, escorted by Père Bénédict. In St. Pierre she finds that her father has died; his widow, who rules the island's French society, believes Zabette to be the child of a beautiful quadroon with whom Zabette's father left for France; when Zabette is sent to the mulatto quarter, Stéphane Séquineau is present and takes an interest in her. Destitute, Zabette is forced to auction off her Paris fashions, and though Quembo, a cunning quadroon, is the highest bidder, Stéphane outbids him at the last minute and professes his love, which she accepts, believing herself to be une fille de couleur; however, his older brother, Maurice, insinuating that a mixed marriage would ruin him, persuades her to desist.
Red Dice
Director
This unusual melodrama with comic touches was based on Octavus Roy Cohen's novel The Iron Chance. Alan Beckwith (Rod La Rocque) is a war hero who is very much down on his luck. He makes a deal with big-time bootlegger Andrew North (Gustave von Seyffertitz) -- if North will give him a large sum of money, Beckwith will kill himself at the end of a year's time. He is to marry a girl of North's choosing and take out an insurance policy naming her as beneficiary; North will collect from the widow. The plot thickens when Beckwith and Beverly (Marguerite De La Motte), the girl North has him marry, actually fall in love. Beverly's brother, Johnny (Ray Hallor), teams up with Beckwith to steal one of North's cargos of rum. North and his men catch them and things look bad until revenue officers -- called on by Beverly -- show up. The North gang is rounded up and Beckwith looks forward to a long life with his wife.
The Light of Western Stars
Director
Jack Holt, Billie Dove, and Noah Beery Sr., who starred together in Wanderers of the Wasteland, appear together again. Madeline Hammond, the sister of ranchman Al Hammond, arrives from the East. Gene Stewart, a rough and rowdy cowboy, convinces Madeline to marry him while he is on a drunken spree. Madeline sets out to reform him, and he sets out to rid their little section of the West of a band of outlaws.
Code of the West
Director
Code of the West (1925)
The Thundering Herd
Director
Story of a trader who uncovers a scheme to blame the Indians for a Buffalo massacre.
The Border Legion
Director
Cowhand Jim Cleve is wrongly accused of murder and rescued by Jack Kells, leader of a band of Idaho outlaws known as the Border Legion. But when the Legion takes Joan Randall prisoner and leaves Cleve to guard her, he realizes that he cannot remain part of an outlaw band and decides to rescue Joan.
Let's Go
Director
The no-good son of a company owner is sent to investigate a problematic business deal.
Danger Ahead
Director
Produced by low-budget entrepreneur Phil Goldstone, this silent action melodrama starred Richard Talmadge, a German-born former stunt double for Douglas Fairbanks.Talmadge played Bruce Randall, a wealthy young man supposedly killed during a robbery in his home. But Bruce has survived and is instead wandering about in a state of amnesia.
Captain Fly-by-Night
Director
First one stranger, then another, arrive at the presidio, each with a government pass and each claiming to have been robbed by the notorious Captain Fly-by-Night and his highwaymen. The soldiers and Señorita Anita believe the first to be Fly-by-Night and the second to be Señor Rocha, Anita's fiancée and emissary of the governor. But the first stranger, to whom Anita is drawn, proves to be on a government mission and exposes the second stranger as Captain Fly-by-Night.
Deserted at the Altar
Director
Anna Moore, a poor orphaned country girl, and her little brother, Tommy, live with hypocritical Squire Simpson, who conspires with his son to acquire the inheritance due the girl.
The Crusader
Writer
Veteran action hero William Russell starred opposite his offscreen wife Helen Ferguson in this typical Fox oater about a miner who finds himself up against a master swindler (George Webb).
Trooper O'Neill
Scenario Writer
Trooper O'Neil is out to get his man -- in this case, whoever murdered Jacob Dell. He poses as a trapper and heads for Saskatchewan country, where he meets and falls in love with Marie.
The One-Man Trail
Writer
A young rancher searchs for the villain who murdered his father and ran off with his sister.